Digital technologies are increasingly positioned as catalysts for competence-oriented vocational teaching and learning arrangement, yet empirical work repeatedly shows that “technology integration” is less a matter of tool availability than of teachers’ situated instructional competence to design, orchestrate, and critically evaluate learning arrangements under curricular, occupational, and organisational constraints (cf. Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Redecker, 2017). In vocational education and training (VET), this challenge is intensified by the need to connect school-based learning with occupational practices and workplaces, often through boundary-crossing learning tasks, authentic assessment, and hybrid learning arenas (cf. Wesselink, de Jong & Biemans, 2010; Lahn & Berntsen, 2023). At the same time, competence-based curriculum reforms commonly generate implementation tensions around authenticity, self-direction, and the teacher role (de Bruijn & Leeman, 2011), making “innovation-driven instructional competence” a theoretically and empirically relevant lens for analysing how vocational teachers enact digital, competence-oriented teaching and learning arrangements.

This study conceptualises vocational teachers’ innovation-driven instructional competences as a central hinge between knowing about digital learning and acting with digital tools in competence-oriented classroom practice. In logistics VET, digital tools such as ERP platforms, process simulations, and blended learning resources are increasingly referenced in curricula and programmes (Author, 2026). Yet their pedagogical value is neither self-evident nor stable: digital tools can amplify competence-oriented teaching and learning when they are embedded in coherent task progressions, scaffolded inquiry, and evidence-based feedback routines; they can also reduce competence orientation when tool use becomes predominantly demonstrative, when simulation activity lacks structured reflection, or when data traces remain pedagogically “silent” due to missing criteria, feedback cycles, and judgement routines (ibid.).

Building on an empirical comparative study of competence-oriented curriculum implementation in logistics-related VET contexts in Germany and China, this study focuses on how digital learning tools are used (or not used) to realise competence-oriented pedagogical principles in teaching and learning practice and how teachers reflect on these enactments. Three interrelated research questions guide the study: (1) How are competence-oriented digital teaching expectations and competence demands for vocational teachers articulated in the Chinese and German logistics VET programme documents? (2) How do teachers enact digitally supported competence-oriented arrangements in practice, and which recurring variation patterns can be identified? (3) How do teachers critically reflect and reframe their practices when confronted with tensions between competence aims and the constraints of digital tools, especially where feedback remains informal and where digital artefacts are underused as evidence for learning and competence development?

The theoretical framework combines three strands that are often treated separately in VET research. First, competence-oriented VET is conceptualised as a curricular and didactic endeavour requiring coherent alignment of intended, interpreted, and implemented curriculum, with particular sensitivity to authenticity, self-direction, and assessment (cf. Goncharova et al., 2024; Sturing et al., 2011; de Bruijn & Leeman, 2011; Mulder et al., 2007). Second, teachers’ professional competence is framed as a multi-component construct (knowledge, beliefs, motivational orientations, self-regulation) that manifests in instructional quality and adaptive decision-making (Baumert & Kunter, 2006, 2013). Third, digitalisation is addressed through teacher digital competence frameworks that foreground pedagogical and ethical-professional aspects (e.g., designing digital resources, orchestrating learning, assessment, learner support) rather than mere operational skills (Redecker, 2017; Cattaneo, Antonietti & Rauseo, 2022; Lahn & Berntsen, 2023). “Innovation-driven instructional competence” is positioned at the intersection of these strands and additionally informed by research on teacher innovativeness as a driver of change in (digital) teaching practices (Vidergor, 2023). The intended theoretical contribution of this study is to generate an empirically grounded foundation for subsequent conceptual reframing, refining the competence dimensions most critical to innovation-oriented, digital, competence-based VET teaching and learning arrangements across contexts.

The study follows a comparative multiple-case design across selected logistics VET programmes in Germany and China, using a mixed-methods triangulation strategy to capture intended, interpreted, and implemented curriculum and to link observed classroom practice with teachers’ reflective sense-making. Data sources include (a) curriculum and instructional material analysis with a focus on competence-oriented intentions and digitalisation-related specifications, (b) non-participant classroom observations of selected logistics lessons with structured observation protocols addressing competence-oriented didactic principles and technology-mediated learning activities, and (c) teacher interviews, including stimulated-recall elements to elicit pedagogical reasoning and reflection on observed episodes. Sampling is purposeful and contrastive (e.g., tool-rich vs. tool-limited settings; explicit vs. informal feedback/assessment cultures). Analysis combines deductive-inductive qualitative content analysis with cross-case comparison. A theory-informed coding scheme operationalises innovation-driven instructional competences through observable indicators in: (1) competence-oriented alignment (outcomes-tasks-assessment), (2) orchestration/scaffolding in hybrid and simulation environments, (3) digitally enabled formative assessment and process diagnostics, and (4) reflective handling of constraints and ethical-professional issues (e.g., data use, transparency). Comparative synthesis will produce a typology of competence profiles and recurrent tension patterns across the two contexts, serving as an empirical basis for subsequent conceptual refinement.

Empirically, the study is expected to yield a fine-grained map of how digital tools are pedagogically embedded in competence-oriented logistics teaching in both contexts, distinguishing between superficial digital substitution and competence-relevant integration (e.g., simulation-based task solving, data-driven decision exercises, digitally supported reflection and feedback loops) and showing where competence-oriented principles (authenticity, self-direction, reflective learning, criterion-based assessment) are strengthened or diluted by digital mediation . The comparative lens is expected to reveal context-specific “implementation signatures” of innovation-driven instructional competence, including recurring tensions between curricular requirements, examination logics, available infrastructures, and teachers’ discretionary space for pedagogical innovation. Theoretically, the results are expected to substantiate a set of empirically grounded competence dimensions for innovation-driven teaching in digital, competence-oriented VET arrangements, likely spanning (a) design competence for authentic, competence-targeted digital tasks; (b) orchestration competence for interactive, adaptive facilitation with digital tools; (c) assessment and feedback competence for competence-oriented evaluation supported by digital evidence; (d) reflective competence to interpret learning traces and revise instruction; and (e) boundary-connecting competence to link school learning to occupational practice. These outcomes are intended to function as an evidence base for a subsequent theoretical reframing effort.

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